1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements in eyeglasses and more particularly it relates to an improved eyeglass support system which can support a pair of eyeglasses in the customary position on the bridge of a wearer's nose in a novel manner which is useful and provides some unexpected advantages, as will be made apparent herein.
2. The Prior Art
Conventional eyeglasses comprise a frame having an eye wire extending around and holding a pair of lenses, one for each eye and having a bridge between the lenses to rest on the wearer's nose and support the lenses in front of their eyes, and further comprise a pair of temples extending from the frame at opposed sides thereof to lie across each ear thereby to hold the eyeglasses in position, for which purpose the temples are provided with downward extensions, or earpieces, at their extremities. Commonly this extension is a more or less straight finger angled to the temple which may or may not be provided with some curvature towards the back of the wearer's head, and this arrangement is quite satisfactory for many eyeglass wearers. The Yerur "eye wire" is used herein to include a bow or any other support structure for the buses.
Greater holding power is conventionally obtained by curving the temple extensions quite sharply and downwardly into a C-shape to fit snugly around the back of the ear. These curved temple extensions are often formed to lie substantially all the way around the auricle and to terminate in the vicinity of its lobule, or the ear lobe. With this design the temple extension is usually flexible and resilient to help the wearer put the eyeglasses on. This style is often prescribed for young children whose vigorous activity is likely to cause their eyeglasses to fall off.
Young children wearing corrective lenses have a special need for accurately positioning the lenses correctly and for holding them positioned. With their rapidly developing visual system already displaying optical abnormalities it is especially important that the condition not be aggravated by poor, inadequate or distortive corrective attributable to improper positioning of the lenses. Furthermore, young children tend to be impatient and to find conventional eyeglasses to be annoying. The prior art fails to offer an eyeglass support system which is adequately adjustable, can securely and comfortably position the eyeglasses and is adequately attractive to be satisfactory for children's corrective lenses.
Whilst the above-described temple extension designs have obviously been satisfactory for most wearers, witness the tens or hundreds of millions of eyeglasses that incorporate them, they can have serious shortcomings for children and infants because of their activity and possibly undeveloped dexterity, for disabled or elderly people having limited use of their hands, for athletes again because their activity is likely to dislodge the eyeglasses, for equipment operators who may have only one hand available for donning special purpose or protective eyeglasses for dentists, physicians and surgeons who wear specialized optical equipment when working, and for people suffering disease or malformation of the outer ear that creates problems with the support apparatus of conventional eyeglasses, for all these groups there has been a long-felt need for an improved eyeglass support system which is more secure and easier to don than the widespread temple extension system.
The need for such a support system having been so long felt, there have, of course, been various proposals for improvement. The most common, probably, is an elasticated headband which passes across the back of the head and which has its ends secured, usually removably, to the temple extensions, or else, with the temples and hinges displaced by the headband, secured directly to the opposed sides of the frame, generally without hinges. This latter construction is well known in the form of goggles, or where the eyeglass comprises a single lens extending across both eyes, a face mask.
This elasticated headband can certainly help secure the eyeglasses but it has important drawbacks in that the eyeglasses can be difficult to put on, requiring two hands; the elastication of necessity exerts pressure on the user's nose, face and head so that the eyeglasses are somewhat uncomfortable and not suited for all day wear; and the headband is unsightly, not lending itself to fashionable design. Such elasticated eyeglasses accordingly find utility for short-term specialized applications such as swimming and cycling, notably as goggles, and such as protection of operators of equipment, especially as face masks.
The problems of comfort and appearance are particularly important when fitting small children with corrective lenses.
There is accordingly still a long-standing need for an improved support system that can help overcome the aforesaid drawbacks.